People fill out index cards with questions as about 100 people show up for a town hall meeting without U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters Wednesday in Irvine. The questions will be delivered to Walters' office. Most of the people are angry Walters will not have a meeting with them and many oppose her policies. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

About 100 people vote to keep Obamacare during a town hall meeting without U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters on Wednesday in Irvine. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Host Deborah Newquist speaks to about 100 people who attend a town hall meeting without U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters on Wednesday in Irvine. Topics discussed were immigration, health care and President Trump's alleged conflicts of interest. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Contemplating the issues, Tim Bradley is one of about 100 people who attended a town hall meeting without U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters on Wednesday in Irvine. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

Addressing about 100 people, Michele Musacchio speaks during a town hall meeting without U.S. Rep. Mimi Walters Wednesday in Irvine. (Photo by Michael Fernandez, Contributing Photographer)

IRVINE – Attendees of an anti-Donald Trump town hall meeting are upset that a staffer for their congresswoman, Rep. Mimi Walters, called them “paid activists.”

Organizer Deborah Newquist, a 66-year-old gerontologist who used to run an elder care consulting firm, said she wasn’t paid to host the Feb. 22 meeting. The majority of the attendees were her fellow residents in University Hills, a housing development for UC Irvine faculty and staff and their families, she said.

About 120 people packed the University Hills community center for the town hall, demanding that Walters take a stand against the new presidential administration.

They voiced concerns about health care and environmental and immigration issues, but were united in their frustration with Trump. Because Walters was absent, they took straw polls and wrote down questions for her to be delivered to her office.

Walters didn’t attend the event, and her spokeswoman, Abigail Sigler, emailed the following statement to the Register six hours before the meeting to explain why Walters declined the invitation:

“Congresswoman Walters is in Orange County this week meeting with the people she represents. She firmly believes that meeting and listening to her constituents is the best (way to) represent them and advocate for them in Washington.

“She will not allow a small, vocal group of paid activists distract her from this fundamental responsibility. As she always has, she welcomes anyone with comments or concerns to contact her office.”

Instead, she stated in an email Thursday that protesters weren’t “organizing organically” and were following the online “Indivisible Guide,” which is put together by progressive former congressional staffers and analyzes the tea party’s successes against Barack Obama and details how to use those lessons against Trump.

She said well-funded national activist groups – such as MoveOn.org, Working Families Party and American Civil Liberties Union – are collaborating with Indivisible supporters to protest, though she didn’t say how they were involved in Wednesday’s meeting other than to cite the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s announcement to hire full-time local organizers.

Newquist said Sigler’s statements are “insulting.”

“(Walters) is the one who’s being paid and with our tax dollars,” Newquist said. “And she should be doing her job, which means talking to a range of constituents.”

She said she decided to host the event after being alarmed by Trump’s presidency so far and his proposals such as repealing the Affordable Care Act – and from encouragement from her son. She invited University Hills residents through an email list and people she met from participating in the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. in January.

Newquiest couldn’t publicize the event until Tuesday because she had to wait to confirm if the community center was available for gathering, she said. Democrats of Orange County Political Action Committee and a political organization called California 45th also helped spread the word, she said.

Newquist, who moderated the meeting, gave representatives from the two groups time to introduce themselves to the attendees.

She said she has downloaded the Indivisible Guide but hasn’t had time to read it.

“What does it matter if we’ve read the Indivisible Guide; we don’t do this for living,” she said. “They are just trying to discredit us and say we are not legitimate constituents.

“This is rising up from the ground level,” she said. “People are looking for ways to organize because they are concerned, and she (Walters) should be talking to a wide range of constituents not just people who agree with her.”

UC Irvine sociologist David Meyer, author of “The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America,” said politicians often label protests as “paid activism” to discredit people they don’t like. (Meyer didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting.)

“People said that the tea partiers were paid, and it wasn’t true,” Meyer said. “Even if you can find one or two odd people – and you can always find one or two odd people among 120 people – the mass people are what they claim to be.”

While there are professional organizers and special interests involved, Meyer said, grassroots activists are fueling the nationwide effort. He said the Indivisible Guide is available for anyone to read and there’s nothing secret or nefarious about it.

“It’s understandable that (Walters) would take cue from the president and throw those charges around, but she needs to do a better job substantiating such claims,” Meyer said.

Many at Wednesday’s event said they were energized after watching and hearing about others protesting against the Trump administration.

Shira Liu, a 33-year-old civil attorney who lives in University Hills, came late to the meeting, she said, because she had been putting her young daughter to bed. Liu said she wants Walters to attend a town hall meeting and stand up against Trump.

Although she hadn’t been politically active, Liu said, she visited Walters’ office to raise her concerns after hearing Trump had chosen Steve Bannon as his White House chief strategist.

“If a different Republican had been elected (as president), I don’t think I’d be spending my little time on political activism,” Liu said. “But I see the Trump administration as a real threat to American democracy. … I can’t imagine who would be paying us to do this.”

Fellow attendee Michele Musacchio said she would be upset if there had been paid activists at the meeting to roil things up.

A molecular genetics scientist, Musacchio learned about the meeting through the University Hills email list and decided to attend so she could have her voice heard.

“I feel strongly that our democracy is being threatened by a different style of government now,” Musacchio said. “Our congressional representative is pretty much the only person who can keep the democracy first and foremost.”

In her email to the Register on Thursday, Sigler wrote she would hope UC Irvine faculty and University Hills residents “were not attending this overtly political event in their official capacity.”

“Congresswoman Walters will continue to engage in thoughtful, productive discussions with her constituents to ensure she represents them, as she always has,” Sigler stated, adding Walters’ victory in November by 17 percentage points is a sign that her constituents are pleased with her work.

Orange County has become a key battleground of a national resistance movement against the Trump administration. Dozens of grassroots activists are parading to GOP congressional offices each week demanding town hall meetings to address their Congress members.

All four — Walters, Reps. Ed Royce, Dana Rohrabacher and Darrell Issa — were reelected in November, but their districts all favored Hillary Clinton for president.

Tomoya Shimura covers Irvine for the Orange County Register. Prior to his stint at the Register, Tomoya had worked as a news reporter and sports writer for the Daily Press in Victorville. He won several awards for his work there, including the best business story from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Tomoya received his M.S. in sports studies from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He earned his B.A. in liberal arts from International Christian University in Tokyo.

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